Instead, the terrace has been cantilevered and its underside and other arena soffits have been finished with recycled wood to mirror “the warmth and richness” of the materials being considered for the arena’s interior.

In addition, a series of archways and kiosks have been added to the elevated pedestrian path along northern side of the arena, designed to act as wind blocks and keep fans from having to fight the wind tunnel that modeling exposed.

Comments from “Plugged-In” Readers

The Warriors can finally come home. In the sixties, Oakland had the Oakland Oaks then later Oakland Clippers (later San Diego now Los Angeles Clippers). The Warriors never changed cities, San Francisco Warriors to Golden State Warriors. One of if not the only teams in the NBA that does not have a city name before team name. I hope Oakland as well as the Bay Area can “now” carry two NBA teams as we have for baseball and football. Time to come home.

“In the sixties, Oakland had the Oakland Oaks then later Oakland Clippers (later San Diego now Los Angeles Clippers). ”

That’s incorrect in numerous ways. The San Diego Clippers came from the Buffalo Braves. The Oakland Clippers were a soccer team. The Oakland Oaks were a basketball team, true, but they moved to DC, then Northern Virginia, then disbanded.

Dave, you never disappoint. Coliseum City in Oakland is not happening. The Oakland City Government and Alameda Couty are disfunctional. Oakland will be lucky to save one team. If the Raiders stay, the A’s will leave. If the A’s stay, the Raiders are gone. The Warriors are moving to San Francisco. The EIR will be finished by December . Over 60% of the electorate in SF support the arena. The only thing Oakland is good for is non profits. Get use to it.

I could say the same for you. What the hell are you talking about? Uber is moving 3,000 jobs to downtown Oakland. I noted this in response to Dave’s “Oakland is only good for non profits” line. I did not say Uber was moving its headquarters to Oakland.

Fine. Its not like they are called the Oakland Warriors. The 49ers are still called the SF 409ers thought their stadium is no where near SF.

IMO this stadium will never happen. I think some with the Warriors PTB know that. If they never move forward on this the Warriors still stand to make a ton of money. The office component is Prop-M qualified. Though how long the office market in SF remains a good investment no one knows.

Still stand to make a ton of money in Oakland? Coliseum City is dead, Oakland is still carrying debt from the construction of the Coliseum itself, and is at this point scrambling to even hold on to the Raiders. Yeah, sounds like a good investment.

Let’s just say that the entree of choice at Alfred’s is a slab of meat cooked ‘black and blue.’

Here’s my side dish: no actual people live in Mission Bay. The apts are all “asset class” purchases and sit empty. Otherwise the uprising against this thing would be much more in its face.

But the core problem I have with it is not fixable: that the collateral damage of (raking in dough on ticket sales to) a giant meat market coliseum is what happens to everything around it. Like oil wells and airports, these things ruin their surroundings for miles. And our city is a small one. Plus stadiums in general are creepy artifacts with limited lifespans (look what is ‘presenting’ at sports arenas these days — hide your wives and kids) because not a single interesting young person a talk to these days wants to go to a Warrior game. Or any other game except the Hunger one. As viewed on their smart phone.

The entire waterfront south of Market Street in San Francisco is one gigantic missed opportunity.

I think the best example presently in North America of taking a similar waterfront railroad yard like what was this one, and turning it into something amazing is Millennium Park in Chicago and all of the surrounding towers and cultural venues that place contains.

Unless you have seen the Millennium Park area for yourself, and knew what it was like before, you would not imagine such things are still possible in American cities. Why can’t we dream bigger like Chicago regarding our waterfront?

I agree with “unlivable city”…this arena is a sad way to “fix” the waterfront and “bring life” to the area.

True. I’ve read there was once a proposal to transform this whole area into a “second city” with canals and dramatic architecture. I have never seen visuals of the proposal and maybe it never got much beyond just a proposal. I think this was something being kicked around in the 90s.

The Lennar HP project looks like it will mimic pretty much Mission Bay in terms of architecture. Another missed waterfront opportunity. Imagine that project with imaginative integration around the bay front it adjoins. Canals there would have been amazing.

Alberto – was there a projected number of housing/rental units? Office space? Park/open space? It included hi-rise elements – looks like 30 stories or a bit less? I am not a big hi-rise fan, but for something along these lines I would have been totally on board.

Over 18 million feet of office space?! That is like 12 plus Salesforce towers (I believe that hi-rise is around 1.4 million sq feet).. That is probably more than has been built here in the last 20 years – given the cap.

7000 housing units – that may be more than is planned for the TransBay Center/Rincon Hill area. Not sure on that number but is it more than 7000 units.

Those were different times to be sure – that something like what Pei’s team proposed was actually proposed in San Francisco.

That proposal is what you call political pipedreaming. Like Bernie Sanders promising free college tuition or Donald Trump claiming to send all illegals back home. Things that will never happen but are meant to get votes and political support for something.

Chicago also has the massive public debt model. They’ve spent hundreds of millions on it and Chicago has a huge debt burden per capita compared to SF. From the Chicago Tribune (namelink):

“Daley’s relatively modest proposal to commemorate the millennium with a new park that was mostly open green space for $150 million “at no cost to taxpayers” resulted in a world-renowned, multifaceted destination completed in 2004 with a price tag that eventually topped $490 million, including at least $95 million in tax money. The rest of the tab was covered with $225 million in private donations, some cash from parking fees and the eventual sale of four city and Chicago Park District parking garages for hundreds of millions of dollars.

Once it was built, the city found it did not even have enough money to operate the park, despite help from the private sector, so Daley borrowed nearly $30 million just to keep it running — loans taxpayers continue to pay back.

That’s not the only ongoing financial burden related to Millennium Park, which officially opened 10 years ago Wednesday. Taxpayers also could be on the hook for $58 million related to the lease of those parking garages because of how the Daley administration put together the deal.”

Jake, whatever Millennium cost it was worth it for what it has done to the surrounding area. Over 40 new residential towers greater than 30 stories have risen in the area of the park since it’s completion and units that “face the park” command almost double in price to those that face the skyline.

What I think is interesting about Millennium Park is that it is URBAN and promotes what is great about city life with concert venues, museums, performance auditoriums, amazing public art, and gathering spaces for everyone. I consider sports arenas to be a suburban venue and I cannot understand why we would want to locate this on what is our greatest asset which is our waterfront.

Dump this arena next to a freeway down south and let this waterfront site become truly urban and part of our city. I would rather have the Millennium Park/Frank Gehry bandshell than a sports arena.

True. But you’d think there would be a sense of wanting good architecture from the vox populi.

Not everywhere but this site is one the few remaining on the Bay like this in SF.

Arguments aside as to whether or not it is wise to build a basketball stadium in SF, if one is going to and it fronts the Bay – why not something striking and spectacular like the Syndey Symphony Hall. Why not a retractable roof facing the Bay?

Seeing the Pei design for this area from decades ago reinforces how mundane the eventual development here turned out.

Same with two other rare Bay front parcels. TI and HP. Both getting the Mission Bay treatment from Lennar.

TI could should have been something special, the proposed arena site should have been something special.

I don’t know the geographic layout of the Warrior fan-base but I don’t know of a lot of folks in my neighborhood clamoring for this project.

IMO, it is not the slam dunk to survive an initiative challenge that some feel it is.

Some amazing Schrödinger’s Arena in the comments here: the arena will be in a state of “causing immense gridlock” and “empty because Millennials™ are all glued to their cellphones” at the same time! People say the same about condos too: they’re both “investment purchases that are all sitting empty (because their owners apparently don’t want to make rental income)” and “housing for people SF is not able to support because we ran out of room” at the same time. Quantum mechanics is quite something.

LOL, great comment. Now if only Muni could tap into that and run multiple trains in the same physical space – all you have to do is get on the next Muni train that comes and it snaps into existence as the train that you wanted!

I know it might be hard for you to comprehend, but it is possible that those of us that actually live in Mission Bay like new buildings. I’m pretty sure those who are anti-development don’t move to Mission Bay because they would go crazy.

Looking at the first two renderings, I would think that pier 54, which is just to the immediate north of the site would be perfect for a full-scale renovation to support full-time ferry service and possibly some additional small businesses.

I also think it would be an interesting idea to make Terry Francois a tunnel, so the park could extend from the bay to the foot of the building.

honestly the more I see this the less I like it. The connection to Terry Francois Blvd and the waterfront is awful. I really wish there WERE some scenario in which this proposal disappeared…..wish they had been successful with their original idea, which would have been much better for transit access, and which would have had a much more dramatic and effective connection to the Bay. I predict that this will be loathed upon completion.

This thing is hideous. The only things it will add to the neighborhood are traffic and the periodic influx of drunk, idiot suburbanites that drive in to see the game and then drive out immediately afterward (for evidence of this, see the degenerates that attend a typical SF Giants game).

A more appropriate place for this stadium would be off a highway exit ramp somewhere south of the city, maybe across the street from a Chilis or a Target, rather than in Mission Bay where it will ruin some of the last undeveloped land in one of the world’s great cities. Almost any conceivable use of that land, including leaving it undeveloped, would be better for city residents than this.

Yeah, look what happened to the area around AT&T park. It was a dump, they built the park, and the area just flat out died. No new buildings, no transportation, nothing. Building AT&T park has set that part of the city back 30 years, and it may never recover from the trauma.

Ah yes, some pristine, “undeveloped” former industrial land that now serves as a parking lot, RUINED by development. I, as an SF resident, will definitely miss looking at acres and acres of parking lots in mission bay! My heart sags, weary of the disappearing asphalt.

Rusting industrial buildings on polluted land are an important part of our community, we need to preserve the heart of San Francisco’s identity. If we allow people to build on these lots, well, it’s just a shame.